


they left no instructions (just a legacy to protect)

by zornslemon



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 20:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7453048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zornslemon/pseuds/zornslemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keyleth and Percy couldn't be more different, but they share a similar burden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they left no instructions (just a legacy to protect)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 1 (non-romantic pairing) of the Critical Role rarepair week. As usual, many thanks to Attila for betaing.

Keyleth knows that branching out and meeting new people is a big part of her Aramente, but she can't help but feel like she's fallen in with the wrong crowd.

Grog sees battles as play time. Scanlan started hitting on her the moment they met and then promptly stopped as soon as he saw her blush. (Keyleth still isn't sure whether or not she should be offended.) Vex is nice, but she's really intense, and her brother doesn't even pretend to be nice.

They're not all terrible, and it doesn't take too much for Keyleth to reassure herself that they're not all cold-blooded killers, but the whole thing can be a little unsettling.

So it's actually a relief when Percy joins the party.

He's not perfect by a long shot. He's pompous and frequently terrifying. But he's also quiet and smart and well spoken. And when Keyleth goes to curl up with a book in the evenings, Percy actually joins her, and for once, Keyleth feels like she's made a friend.

\---

The first time Percy pulls out his overwhelmingly long name, Keyleth is mostly stunned and kind of impressed. The second time, she can't help but have questions.

"So do all your middle names mean that you're royalty or something?" she asks him.

"Nobility, not royalty. There's a distinction," Percy says.

"Right, yeah, of course," Keyleth says. "I guess that comes with a lot of responsibility."

"You have no idea," Percy says.

"Actually, I, uh, sort of do."

Percy gives her a once over, a skeptical look on his face. "I have to say you don't look titled to me."

"I'm not exactly, but, um, have you heard of the Ashari?"

“I’m afraid I haven’t.”

“We’re a druid tribe. We protect the elemental planes and stuff,” Keyleth says, and, wow, she really needs to work on her pitch. “Basically, my dad’s in charge, and I’m supposed to be in charge next. Technically, I guess I’m a princess, but I always feel really stupid calling myself that.”

“Be proud of your title,” Percy says. “You have no idea what sort of clout it could hold.”

“Clout, wow, yeah. I hadn’t even thought about that,” Keyleth says. “I just want to be a good leader. I don’t want to let my people down. Or my father.”

“You want to carry on the legacy,” Percy says.

Keyleth smiles and locks eyes with Percy, and, just for a moment, it seems that they understand each other perfectly.

“Exactly.”

\---

They’re the two youngest, Keyleth thinks, though she doesn’t know for sure, and she’s not sure how to ask how old Percy is without it being super awkward. Still, even though he looks hardened and his hair has gone white, every so often, Percy will say something that makes Keyleth think that he’s just as young as she is.

“Do you ever think that we’re too young for this group?” Keyleth asks Percy one day. It’s been a long day between a long fight with a monster terrorizing a local town and an even longer argument where Keyleth felt like she was the only one who thought that maybe the troubled town should get some of the loot.

Percy shrugs. “The way I see it, it’s less about age and more about maturity. I often feel like I’m the only real adult in the room.”

“Right,” Keyleth says, remembering that Percy had been perfectly happy to keep all the loot. “Well, do you think I’m too young for this then?”

“I would say that the words ‘irritatingly naïve’ do occasionally cross my mind when you speak,” Percy says.

Keyleth nods weakly. “Okay, yeah, I get that.” She turns to leave the room, because she’s heard what she needs to hear.

“You don’t have to leave,” Percy says. “I didn’t actually mean it as an insult.”

“You know, Percy, a lot of the things you say kind of wind up sounding like insults,” Keyleth says, hoping Percy realizes that it’s just an observation and not an insult itself.

“Blame my upbringing,” Percy says. “That’s what nobles do.”

“Right, yeah, that’s what real nobles are like.”

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you’re a princess.”

“Just an irritatingly naïve one.”

“I didn’t entirely mean it as a bad thing.”

“It sort of sounds like a bad thing.”

“Keyleth, we’re all terrible people. I in particular am a terrible person,” Percy says. “Your moral quandaries are frustrating, and mostly they just waste time, but they keep us in check. You stop us from becoming even more terrible than we already are, and that is certainly something I need.”

\---

It becomes a recurring theme with Percy, Keyleth notices, that he keeps insisting he’s a terrible person. He’s not entirely wrong, and Keyleth’s no stranger to self-loathing herself, but she wishes she could make Percy see how much he helps them, how he’s always the first one to jump in and try to fix things, whether it’s a broken weapon or a social interaction that the party has completely ruined.

She brings it up one day when she’s helping Percy in his lab. “You know, you bring a lot of good things into the world with this lab.”

“I make a lot of truly awful things too,” Percy says, tapping on his pepperbox.

“You’ve done a lot of good with that gun,” Keyleth says somewhat uneasily, because, okay, she still doesn’t exactly like firearms.

“It’s going to bring about the end of the world.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, I really do,” Percy says. “Once other people get their hands on these things, it’s going to make it so much easier to do terrible things.”

“Percy, anything powerful enough can be used to do terrible things,” Keyleth says. “I’ve heard stories about evil druids who use their powers to break the land and hurt a lot of people. Even I killed a kid once.”

“I had forgotten about that.”

“I hadn’t. I kind of think about it a lot, actually.”

“Well, then welcome to the terrible person club.”

“I like to think of it more as the trying to be a better person club,” Keyleth said, but even as she says it, she’s not convinced.

\---

When Percy tells them all about what happened to his family, it hits Keyleth like a ton of bricks. She’s always kind of figured that he was hiding something, since he always maintained an air of nobility without ever mentioning specifics, but the truth is so much worse than Keyleth imagined.

And, even though she knows it’s stupid and selfish, she can’t help but think of her own mother.

“Do you miss your family?” Keyleth asks, although she knows it’s a stupid question as she says it.

“Every minute of every day,” Percy says.

“It must be hard knowing that they’ll never see everything you’re doing for them,” Keyleth says. “I know something about what that’s like.”

“Because of your mother?”

“Yeah,” Keyleth says. “I just wanted to say that if you ever need someone to just be here for you, you have me.”

“Thanks, though I’m not exactly one wallow,” Percy says. “Sitting around grieving feels pointless to me. I just want revenge. Do you ever feel like that?”

Keyleth shakes her head. “I want to know what happened to my mother, but revenge is too much.”

Percy chuckles, but he sounds bitter and a little sinister. “Well, I always said you were a better person than me.”

Keyleth shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe you’re a better person, since you’re actually doing something for your family, while I just try not to think too hard about my mom.”

“Well, then, here’s to moral relativism.”

And Keyleth knows that her own take on morality couldn’t be more different than Percy’s, but she smiles and nods anyways, because she knows that in the weeks to come, she’s ready to help him with nearly anything.


End file.
